DRM server transition to make some Ubisoft games unplayable starting tomorrow

When Ubisoft starts migrating some of its servers tomorrow, legal purchasers …

While DRM schemes are designed to make sure only legitimate purchasers can play a game, the opposite will be true starting tomorrow for some Ubisoft titles. That's when a planned server migration will temporarily disable the DRM servers for some of the company's Mac and PC titles, making it so only pirates with cracked, DRM-free versions of the games will be able to play.

The games affected by the planned outage include:

Assassin's Creed - Mac

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2 - PC

Might & Magic : Heroes VI - PC

Splinter Cell Conviction - Mac

The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom - PC

The Settlers - Mac

In addition, people playing recent Ubisoft PC games that use Ubisoft's Uplay system will only be able to play if they have previously logged in to confirm their purchase, and online modes for many games will be temporarily unavailable. The company hasn't clarified exactly how long the server transition will take, but promises to keep gamers updated via its Twitter account.

At least gamers will have warning this time—back in 2010, a "server malfunction" caused by a massive DDoS attack prevented some players from logging in to confirm their legal purchases. And hey, the temporary outage will prepare these games' owners for the inevitable day when Ubisoft decides its simply no longer worthwhile to maintain its DRM servers for "classic" titles, ensuring that cracked versions will be the only ones that are usable.

Last fall, Ubisoft Reflections founder Martin Edmonson said the company's DRM methods were a "quite morally correct" way to protect the company's investment in making games, arguing that "if there was very little trouble with piracy then we wouldn't need it."

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

A planned server migration will temporarily disable the DRM servers for some of the company's Mac and PC titles, making it so only pirates with cracked, DRM-free versions of the games will be able to play.

This is nothing new, as a legal purchaser I've been unable to play Heroes 6 about half the time I try to play it because their servers are down. Sure I can load up the game but all my characters are missing and I won't get credit for the games I play while the servers are offline. Credit in the form of experience and currency which affects your items and abilities that carry from game to game. Not to mention losing any ability to play multiplayer online despite Steam being up and running.

Ubisoft fucking sucks and Heroes 6 is the last of their games I'm going to buy until they get their shit together.

EA's new Origins bullshit and Microsoft's Games for Windows Live are no better. What is the deal with all the major publishers having their heads up their asses?

Are Valve the only ones who can run an online gaming system worth a shit in the entire world? Blizzard does OK I suppose as well except that whole issue of weekly downtime on Tuesdays.

they are too busy link-baiting and sensationalizing the issue to include such facts...

That's because this information isn't available anywhere - could be a few days, could be a month, we don't know. This isn't a sensationalist article, it's a serious issue worth discussing. But good job trollbaiting, you're contributing SO MUCH here.

[insert obligatory comment of this is why piracy is ethical/moral/etc]

And stuff like this really does make me wonder whether or not it's worth it to be be a legitimate consumer. I already got screwed over by DRM on tracks I bought on legit Napster. And it's the biggest reason I have been afraid of buying too many books on my nook. Still, I try to remain legit in all my media consumption. It's just that at times like this.....it really makes me wonder who the bad guys are

Are Valve the only ones who can run an online gaming system worth a shit in the entire world?

Ebbv, did you even try Steam in its first year of life? It was craptastic in almost every way. It took over 12 months to get most of the bugs worked out, much less to get a decent group of games on it.

Do not misunderstand me, I really think Ubi is barking up the wrong tree with this DRM which is why I haven't bought any of their games since the first iteration of this crap.

Also, with EA at the helm, Origin will fail. Unless they decide to be more Steam-like (sales and flexibility-wise), it will fall flat in short order.

Steam is awesome now, but really (and I mean REALLY) sucked in its youth.

I can't be bothered to pirate games, but this is a large part of the reason why I just don't buy almost any games that have DRM. I don't want to have to keep track of which companies have decent DRM and which don't. I also can't stand the idea of specials on a per retailer basis, so I avoid the games that offer those. In essence, publishers' attempts to increase their sales have driven me almost completely out of the market.

Heroes VI was just released last October, it's not like this is a game people are unlikely to be playing right now... I would honestly not really care that much if they took down a DRM server for a game they stopped selling 3 years ago or something, but this game was just released. What are they thinking?

Steam was undeniably a pile of steaming, festering excrement in its first couple of iterations. Downloading Counter-Strike updates (1.5 et al) was INCREDIBLY painful and slow.

The article, though, seems to go out of its way to portray DRM and specifically UbiSoft as a bad thing: "And hey, the temporary outage will prepare these games' owners for the inevitable day when Ubisoft decides its simply no longer worthwhile to maintain its DRM servers for "classic" titles, ensuring that cracked versions will be the only ones that are usable."

Mind you, UbiSoft and other gaming companies would still find a way to put this architecture in place, they simply wouldn't blame it on piracy. They'd call it 'enhancing the gaming experience'.

Last fall, Ubisoft Reflections founder Martin Edmonson said the company's DRM methods were a "quite morally correct" way to protect the company's investment in making games, arguing that "if there was very little trouble with piracy then we wouldn't need it."

I have no problem with DRM in theory. But in practice it always gets cracked, leaving the pirates with a better experience than the legitimate users which only encourages piracy. The music industry was somehow able to shake off DRM, now it's time for the software (and TV/movie) industry to do the same.

I have no problem with DRM in theory. But in practice it always gets cracked, leaving the pirates with a better experience than the legitimate users which only encourages piracy. The music industry was somehow able to shake off DRM, now it's time for the software (and TV/movie) industry to do the same.

In theory, DRM doesn't work, so why do you not have a problem with it in theory?

So you won't be able to play a handful a games you probably wouldn't have been playing anyway for a couple of hours/days?

Get over it.

1) It's unspecified so it could very well be hours or weeks.2) People PAID for the products they can't access now.3) It's all due to a device that doesn't add any kind of service to them.4) The only set of people not affected by the device is the very people the device was intended for.

Ebbv, did you even try Steam in its first year of life? It was craptastic in almost every way. It took over 12 months to get most of the bugs worked out, much less to get a decent group of games on it.

Do not misunderstand me, I really think Ubi is barking up the wrong tree with this DRM which is why I haven't bought any of their games since the first iteration of this crap.

Also, with EA at the helm, Origin will fail. Unless they decide to be more Steam-like (sales and flexibility-wise), it will fall flat in short order.

Steam is awesome now, but really (and I mean REALLY) sucked in its youth.

Yeah Steam sucked when it was new, but that was 2003. It's 2012. There's no excuse for Ubisoft's service to be this terrible in 2012. It's down all the time and this is just another example of it. Most of the time it's not even announced.

I don't own any Ubisoft games, and I can't help but feeling smug about this.

But as to the technical side of the story, why do you need downtime to migrate some servers? I'm having a hard time imagining a system that can't be migrated with 2 weeks notice. I'm pretty sure they could handle it if it was a webshop.The least they could do is set up a temp server that gives you a green light no matter which code you deliver.

Every time I hear about Ubisoft's crazy stupid DRM I can't help but think about all those Ubisoft developers who must be royally pissed off at the fucking morons in upper management who are calling the shots on this DRM that shits all over the games they worked so hard on (and their reputation). I know I would be pissed if I worked there.

If Ubisoft was smart about this, it would have a server give a go to all the requests, until the new servers are up. That's how it should be. But no, they are greedy assholes. Am really not going to buy much from them anymore.